Every Leader Needs a Challenger in Chief

I found this article very interesting for management scholars and practitioners. One needs somebody who keeps him on his toes and somebody who checks the leaders excesses when they occur. Unfortunately in our cultural setting, it is not easy to have a meaningful challenger in chief. Reasons do not appear obvious but this is something to reflect on.Click to read more..

7 TOUGH LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM A NAVY SEAL COMMANDER

One of the things that are clearly absent on our organizations and indeed nations is attention to detail. This article on taking tactics from the war room, to the Boardroom is worth reading.Click to read more..

Unprofessionalism holding back SMEs’ growth

Unprofessionalism holding back SMEs’ growth

Funding Universities

East Africans love Uganda but Uganda has not gone ahead to exploit that by drawing financial advantage from it. Makerere is seen and talked about by many people in East Africa and indeed in many parts of Africa. It is spoken about with fondness as one of Africa’s greatest academic institutions. Unfortunately Makerere too, like Uganda has not gone ahead to exploit that advantage it has as a result of its history and performance. If you are in Kenya and you say you are from Uganda, some of the words they will use in talking to you are like “sebbo” ‘Kabaka” and’ Matooke” and I have noted that they say these words with a lot of interest and as people with potential to visit Uganda if the opportunity was there.

Uganda is increasingly losing opportunity to become an education hub in the region and the main reason is how the Uganda’s higher education sector is funded. There have been many articles about funding high education. This is my modest contribution to that debate.

Worldwide there are different funding models and they are essentially three of them. One is government where government takes responsibility for the infrastructure and the running costs of the education system. Two, is where education is funded purely on a private basis. Three, is where education is funded through something called endowments or donations by others to support the institutions. Of course there may be a combination of these various types but usually there is a dominant feature. Before we discuss funding of higher education in Uganda and most specifically universities, we can take a close look at these funding models

Funding education through a completely private system has been with us from time immemorial. Indeed some of the best schools worldwide are private schools and some of the best universities are private universities. Some of them are religious based others are completely private. I believe Eton in the UK is one such school. To attend such an institution, you must be financially endowed. These are schools for stinking rich people where money is not the issue. Of course these types of institutions are few because the world has more poor people than wealthy ones.

Schools funded by endowments or through philanthropic initiatives, are not very common in the developing countries. The United States is probably the best example where wealthy people give large sums of money to schools and universities to fund their activities. This is not common in the developing countries because there are no such wealthy people. Nonetheless, there are such practices for instance, the Madhavani group in the 50s and 60s used to donate funds to schools for the development of facilities like libraries.

The third model is that of government. Countries that ideologically have socialistic orientation or use the world welfare states have tended to have government to be the major funder of the education system.  In this case, government takes responsibility to fund infrastructure and even running expenses of the institutions. As stated, there could be a variation of these different models depending on the circumstances on the countries involved.

Looking at funding of universities, these models are in practice with variants in different countries.  Globally most successful private universities are in the developed countries.  Universities that are funded by endowments are primary in the U.S and today universities like Stanford, Harvard have billions of dollars donated to them which they use to fund their numerous activities.  Indeed many entrepreneurs donate large sums of money or construct buildings in universities which these universities use for their activities. This kind of funding model is not common in developing countries. As I suggested earlier, one of the challenges, there are no such entrepreneurs in these countries. In Uganda, our leading entrepreneurs including the Madhavani, Mukwano, the late Mulwana, Wavamunno, Alam Abid and a few others. I do not think they have been able to make enough money to be able to donate large sums of money billions of shillings to the cause of education. The word alumni are frequently used in support of this model. Universities are expected to rally their alumni to find money to fund the university operations. Unfortunately, there are very few alumni with a type of resource that can fund infrastructure or operations of universities. The alumni of Makerere University, our biggest and most prestigious university are usually able to give a cheque to a few best students a year. If they have done anything substantial and may have missed what that is.

Uganda has about 30 universities, government universities are about 6, religious founded universities are about 4 of them and the rest funded privately.  Most of these universities are on record going to government to seek assistance and indeed some of them have received generous grants from government. The majority however operate using tuition fees paid by students. Of course this is not a viable method of funding for a university, especially for infrastructure.  The consequences this is that many of private universities are operating in secondary school buildings, private houses, and such infrastructure that doesn’t define a university. I know the National Council for Higher Education has some stringent requirements, unfortunately if it enforces them it will close all the universities including the government ones. 

The model left is that of government funding. In many countries worldwide especially those that are socialist or those that got scared of the word socialist and use the world welfare state, government has been a key funder of university education. Governments have provided the infrastructure and paid salaries of professors, and funded their research. These universities have excelled, there are hubs of knowledge, everybody who teaches there has a PhD and funds for research are readily available. These universities are contributing to generation of knowledge

Many developing countries Kenya, Tanzania, India have followed the model. Funding for their universities is available from government and indeed they have institutions with excellent structures. Unfortunately Uganda is not in this group. It seems nobody cares what is in their institutions. Of course there is an attempt to but it cannot rival what Kenya does. These countries fund infrastructure and basic salaries. They have modeled themselves on socialist and welfare state in the developed and middle income countries. There has been tremendous change and improvement in literacy levels in these countries

We visited Kenya as a group of MUBS Council members to look at a number of things in Kenyan universities. One important point we took out was if you have a strategic plan that has been accepted and involves construction of buildings, government will provide you the money as and when you want it! Looking closely at our various universities, government has committed itself to start new universities and indeed it has committed some funds for capital development. Unfortunately it is never enough to put up infrastructure that is modern and can be bench marked even regionally.

Case study of MUBS

MUBS had a very humble beginning as a department of commerce as Makerere University in the 1980s and then turned into the Faculty of Commerce with only 2,000 students and one degree programme a Bachelor of Commerce. The Faculty then proposed the commencement of privately sponsored students into the university system. These students used the existing capacity at that time. The Faculty had space for the 800 but had over 200students who studied up to 1pm every day. The space was ingeniously used to be more than the quadruple the number of students over a 5 year period. These students were simply contributing to funding of education by paying tuition fees that went to meet variable costs. As the number increased without funding from government, the small component of the money was allocated to capital expenditure.  In a short while MUBS planned to construct a building which it would fund over a 5 year building form saving on the small surplus that it produced from the fees paid by private students. By moving into a new campus in Nakawa, MUBS financial liabilities increased. The bigger campus needed many facilities to maintain and worse still operating in very old premises that had very high maintenance costs. Because Nakawa had bigger capacity, MUBS increased its intake but it also increased expenditure on maintenance of existing infrastructure.

At some stage MUBS proposed to government to borrow commercially shs. 45 billions  for new infrastructure this would increase capacity and modernize it. MUBS would then pay this money for a period of 6-8 year period. Unfortunately this has never come to pass. Government hasn’t given it the authority to borrow. In these circumstances, MUBS would not on its own fund its infrastructure from recurrent revenues unless if there were some arrangements in some kind of loans that would be paid in future revenue.

MUBS gets some funding from government and may have the capacity to fund infrastructure from borrowed funds but definitely while it is not a university. it is usually grouped among universities in the country. However among this group of institutions it is least funded. Unlike other institutions that have donor funding, MUBS has not had much donor funding that has been geared towards infrastructure. After years of begging, MUBS was availed funds to build a library.!  Of course MUBS had to make some contribution from the funds it generates internally.

Business courses are most popular in this country and indeed worldwide. MUBS has been able to generate some substantial funds from private students but this is not adequate. If MUBS funding model is not entirely viable, this funding model is not ideal. MUBS would be viable with funding from government, infrastructure, research and salaries.

If I were to make some recommendations on funding education in Uganda, I would say UPE and USE are the right policies to be pursued, this should be studied and improved to increase its efficiency and lowering costs. There after government should fund science at all levels in the country with some emphasis on funding of the vocational institutions. Government should fund institutions of higher learning and primarily science based but should take specific interest in infrastructure. If government commits itself to an institution which should be justified through various processes not simply a political decision it should ensure that the institution has got adequate and high quality facilities. If government had done this, it is possible that Uganda would be a hub in higher education. it is not surprising the private schools have become the key players in primary and secondary level education and it is possible that even in higher education those who get the formula right will dominate the sector throwing out the government owned institutions. No individual or alumni in Uganda can make substantial contribution to education. It will be the role of government to fund the education for the foreseeable future.

Kalangala’s Potential to Economically Transform

I visit Kalangala about once a year and all the time I see a slumbering economic giant of island that nobody has woken up to get. The potential in Kalangala is immeasurable. What it lacks is leadership that sees this potential and the resultant policy that will make Kalangala an economic power house. The picture right now is that of a miserable island and indeed it is quite miserable.  The only buildings to talk about is the new administration building, the hotels (or whatever names you want to call them) that are coming up and the BIDCO buildings. The rest of the buildings on the island tell you there is no individual with economic power sufficient to change the economic history of the island.

If you get into Kalangala town, which I should rightly call a trading Centre, what you see replicates literally what is elsewhere in the country. The most outstanding signs are MTN, Airtel, Coca-cola, the beer brands as the key economic activities that the trading centre boosts on. Of course there are also the local accommodation facilities, the eating places, and the roadside chapatti. Another visible business is that of old clothes. This is a typical scenery in most of Uganda’s trading Centre. Of course this is spiced up by bit of government offices and NGOs. Different government offices are always present and a variety of NGOs who are out there to help Africa transform.

BIDCO a Malaysian company introduced the palm growing project that has been controversial from the time of conception. BIDCO has planted over 6,000 acres of palm trees and is producing oil from a factory in Jinja. To be able to grow these palms, BIDCO had to clear a forest. This was a very controversial decision and was criticized by environmentalists, opposition parties and those who felt this project should not succeed.

BIDCO introduced an out growers scheme and on average, a farmer with an acre of land may collect possibly shs. 6 million a year compared to other types of employment in Uganda, this could be worthwhile. But of course this presents itself as an area fertile for research. Out growers therefore have some potential to earn some bit of money as a result of the BIDCO project. With good negotiations, improved productivity, it is possible that the farmer in Kalangala may actually be better off than farmers elsewhere and even get a higher price. Of course this is where government effort through incentives and infrastructure becomes important to improve the fortunes of the people on the island. BIDCO has capacity to change life at the island with selected investments in roads, schools, health centres but of course nobody in BIDCO will do that without request from government. I guess every business has a right to run its business and maximize its profit from it.

BIDCO which started in 2002 is said to be one of Uganda’s largest single foreign direct investment, has cost the investors over USD 150 million. It is intended to bring to the country wealth while at the same time saving the country dollars using to import oil. This project on island could substantially improve lives of people in these parts of the country.

Fishing is the other economic activity in Kalangala which could also change people’s lives and change the face of Kalalngala. Unfortunately much of the fishing in Uganda especially by ordinary Africans is not business oriented. Many fishermen are content with a few kilos of fish every day and never have sufficient volume to make them business people known to supply fish. Most of the commercial fish got on the island of in the Lake Victoria is by foreigners. These local fishermen also indulge in to poor fishing habits like using wrong size nets which cuts small fish jeopardizing future fishing activity or use an orthodox means to fish. It was reported sometime back that some unscrupulous fishermen were using some kind of poison to catch fish. However fish is an economic activity that in away has little effort by the fishermen. They do not have to grow he fish, the fish is in the lake. But it appears that fishing on the island will never make the breakthrough for ordinary people as would have been expected. Government has built two fish processing plants using borrowed funds and five years later these plants have never been used. People prefer to use the ordinary landing site with poor facilities to process their fish. In any case, there volumes are so small, they do not need an organized place to process their fish. Nonetheless, fishing has potential to transform the lives of the islanders.

The last form of economic activity that will see Kalangala change is tourist. Kalalngala has all sorts of beaches and is a magical island that attracts some tourists though they are still in small numbers. What is required is some government support in terms of marketing and popularizing tourism, some descent facilities that will attract high quality tourists and tourist activities that encourage.

The combination of these three create potential for Kalangala to rise above other areas in Uganda and have its GDP growing at over 75% per year. But this will not happen without good plans and good leaders. This will not happen without support from the central government. This will not happen without visionary islanders who see the value of the different economic aspects available on the island. The presence of MTN, Warid, Airtel and the presence of the soft drinks company is based on a small income that the islanders have through fishing and the small amount of tourism in the country. I don’t think Kalangala has any agriculture of volumes worth mentioning. Measures to get rid of poverty are in place, it is up to the people to advantage if they see the opportunity to do so.

Mbarika a Professor with Passion.

Delivering a keynote address at the 18th Annual International Management Conference, Prof. Mbarika urged all professional to adopt ICTs into their work. He advised organizations to appoint IT enthusiasts in ICT leadership positions. And also urged organizations to ensure that the position of the IT in charge was at a strategic rather than an operating level. He highlighted the importance knowledge in ICT in accounting and finance by citing an example of an ICT operative who accumulated a fortune by simply transferring decimal points in money value to his money account. 

Prof. Victor Mbarika originally from Cameroon is an endowed American professor at Southern University. A professor who likes to be called Victor by his students, family members and peers rather than professor urged colleagues to develop a passion for ICT because according to him Africa’s development lay in ICT. Victor’s enthusiasm for ICT especially in Africa led him to starting African wide conferences that are held in different parts of Africa. 

Uganda through MUBS hosted the conference in 2012. The 2013 5^th conference was held in Zimbabwe and the 6^th conference will be held in Kenya. Previous conferences have been held Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana. His enthusiasm for ICT has made him one of the leading researchers in ICT worldwide. He has several projects intended to explore feasibility of improving traditional things in Africa using ICT. He is researching with telemedicine, tele-agriculture and e-governance. Victor is famous for applying and winning research grants. He is the founder President of ICT university, a university that he conceived as an avenue for increasing University Education to Africans especially in areas of ICT and Business.